Yu Yu Hakusho: The True Story
by Aaron Ledgers
Summary: We all saw how Yusuke reacted when his life was unexpectedly taken, and we all know he was given a chance to get it back. But what if the strong, sarcastic boy hadn't been the original Spirit Detective? What if the series had been about a girl? OC Story
1. The Price of Hatred

Disclaimer:  
I own Nothing of the Original Yu Yu Hakusho series except for the Main OC's and any other OC I decide to add in.

This is the only time I will type this, so read it and be aware that the only things that belong to me are my character's looks, features, and altered personalities from the real series.

Read, and I hope you enjoy it! Haha!

* * *

PART ONE: THE PRICE OF HATRED

"Friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life.

And thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine."

—Thomas Jefferson—

* * *

Prologue

_ Bitch__… _ brat_… _midget_… _ orphan_… _outcast_… _

_ Before the accident, people called Luna Nightingale Conroy all of those things and more. Although she hid her feelings through an expressionless mask, the small-boned girl had loathed her existence since she'd first been harassed because of her differences. As a perpetually shy teenager, Luna had always tried to avoid contact with other people—but even though she did her best to stay out of the spotlight, everyone targeted her because she stood out from the normal crowd. It wasn't very hard to see why, though: Luna had round golden eyes, silver hair, and fair facial features opposed to everyone else's slanted eyes, black hair, and tan skin. _

_The girl was a reluctant foreigner on Japanese turf, and everyone used her presence to make themselves look better since they believed she didn't belong with them. From the very beginning, an ingrained hatred began to develop in everybody's hearts toward Luna—even though she'd never once done anything to provoke them. If people in her neighborhood wanted to become popular, they used her as a target for dares to gain acceptance: they tossed her books in the trash, slapped her when nobody was looking, beat her when nobody was around to hear her screaming—and once, a group of teenaged boys took things too far by gang-raping the girl after falsely inviting her to a Japanese Cultural party. _

_ Luna hated all of it: she hated the people who hurt her everyday, she hated the adults who knew what was going on and still turned a blind eye, but most of all… she hated herself for always backing down and never fighting back. She was completely alone, and nobody cared. _

_ As most girls her age usually do, Luna had multiple diaries that she wrote in so she wouldn't snap under the pressure of keeping her emotions bottled up—but what she wrote about wasn't secret crushes, fashion, a date for the prom, or other paraphernalia; she wrote about the pain she endured in day to day life, pain that was caused by other people. She wrote in her diaries as though they could see her words, and—very unintentionally—those diaries became her best friends. She took them everywhere with her so nobody would touch them._

_ On the afternoon that the accident happened, people remembered seeing the four-foot tall girl walking toward her house with her backpack on her shoulder—but no one saw her again until it happened... the accident that left people in shock. A few hours after the accident itself had occurred, three girls from Luna's school found her backpack on the sidewalk and got a nasty idea to read her diaries. They wanted to find some dirt that would give the girl a bad name, and the other two eagerly agreed. However, when the three of them sat down and read the first few pages of the first diary, they were unconsciously drawn into the remnants of her tormented mind. As they continued to read, the girls found themselves riveted with shock: all of the horrifying experiences that Luna had ever been put through were coming to life again through her written words. Abuse after abuse was relived through the pages of her diary, things that nobody had realized was going on—even the tormenters themselves. _

_ The girls, revolted by their own actions, took the backpack to the police department and turned it in. When the small girl's face was put in the newspaper—along with full copies of her diary entries—people all over Japan were horrified by the abuse she'd been put through. Everyone was crushed—because all of them knew they would never get the chance to apologize to Luna for what they'd done to her. _

_ Luna Nightingale Conroy—a small, tormented fifteen-year-old girl with stunning golden eyes and glossy silver hair—had left behind nothing except the tear-stained pages of her diaries__… _and the footprints of her pain she'd put on the guilt-ridden hearts of everyone she'd ever known.

_ This is her story…_


	2. The Price of Love

Prologue: This is the Story of a Girl

"Jedee, if Life is really nothing but a dream... then what's Death?  
And where does the boat come in?"

-Emily Rose Burnette; question asked after reading a book called 'The River Styx'-

* * *

That day started like any other: terrible.

It ended unlike any other: the worst way imaginable.

_"Luna, get me a beer," Molly Conroy snapped from down the hall._

_"Get it yourself, Mom," Luna Nightingale Conroy called back calmly, padding around the corner and into the kitchen. Her silver hair was pulled back into an intricate half-up ponytail—her favorite hairstyle._

_"Now!" the Red-headed woman shouted, getting to her feet and sticking her head out of her room with a bloodshot glare._

_"No! I'm not going to help you get drunk again!" Luna retorted loudly as she the stormed down the hall to her own bedroom, flashing the plump woman a spiteful look as she passed._

_"Whatever," the woman grumbled, shaking her head as she called sarcastically, "Have a good day at school, you stupid brat!"_

_"I will, Mom—but try not to get drunk while I'm gone, okay? I'm the only one who still loves you, so at least give me that little peace of mind!" Luna squeaked as she snatched her bag off the floor, grabbed her acoustic guitar, and headed for the front door._

_"I'll get drunk if I want to!" the woman screeched. "I make the rules, not you!"_

_"FINE! DRINK YOURSELF TO DEATH! IT WOULD BE A MERCY!" Luna shrieked back, slamming the door shut behind her and ending the normal morning routine that she and her mother always had. However, as she zipped into the street and raced for her bus stop with a furious expression, Luna was completely oblivious to what was going to happen to her that afternoon._

* * *

_Luna waited at the bus stop for about ten minutes in the cold September sun, humming softly to herself until the big yellow vehicle lumbered its way up to the corner. She hefted her back and stiffened when it stopped in front of the kiosk, and the doors opened with a mechanical noise. After taking a deep breath and bracing herself for the cold stares she knew were going to be aimed at her, Luna climbed the stairs and stood silently in the isle before looking for an open pairs of slanted brown eyes glared at her just like she'd known, unbridled hatred burning into her face as she looked around. Spotting an open seat at the back of the bus, Luna made her way down the isle and ignored the dirty looks that people were giving her._

_"Watch it, freak!" a Japanese girl with dyed blonde hair snapped when she brushed against her shoulder by accident._

_"I'm so sorry," Luna muttered sarcastically as she walked around the girl and calmly made her way to the back of bus. However, her steely mask faltered slightly when the five boys who'd raped her snickered as she was passing. Someone's foot unexpectedly shot out in the isle and tripped her; unable to keep her balance, Luna stumbled over the appendage and fell to the floor of the bus—stifling a cry of pain as her left elbow bashed against the metal bars below the seats. Feeling humiliated and angry when everyone started laughing, Luna locked her jaw and slowly crawled to all fours. After grabbing her backpack and guitar case from where they had fallen, the girl darted to the open seat and sank down in it unhappily. She stared at the ground, wondering for the thousandth time that week why everyone hated her so badly._

_To keep her mind occupied, Luna pulled out her latest diary and flipped it open to the page she had stopped writing at. After taking a pen out of her bag, Luna tucked a stray strand of her silver hair behind her right ear and began to pour her heart into her writing. Sure, it was an extremely dangerous way to confess how horrible you were feeling since anyone could read your mind like an open book, but it was also like taking pain out of your heart and locking it away inside a chest made of paper and leather._

_The bus rocked and bounced over all of the potholes in the road as they continued through downtown Kyoto, and pretty soon they left the city completely. When the bus let out a metallic screech and the vehicle came to a juddering stop, Luna looked up to see where they were before she put her pen behind her ear: they'd finally arrived at the high school. Slipping her backpack around her shoulders, Luna got up after everyone was off the bus and stepped daintily onto the sidewalk. Finally on safe ground, the small girl flipped her diary open again and pulled her pen from behind her ear._

_"Still taking notes on how to get a man?" a mocking voice snorted. "Or do you want to take more of us?"_

_"Eep!" Luna squeaked as her head snapped up, golden eyes becoming huge as she paled to the point of translucency. It was Tsuruuki Takahashi, the one boy who'd taken the time to earn her trust and befriend her so he could lure her to the imaginary party where he and his friends had raped her._

_Tsuruuki was the only guy in school who had ever taken the time to find out her secrets and become her friend; he was the boy she'd fallen for when he'd stolen her first kiss... and it had meant nothing to him. He was the boy who'd laughed at her while he and his friends raped her, stabbed her with pocketknives, and left her in an alley behind the school in the hopes that she would die._

_The diary slipped from her hand as the familiar terror engulfed her. _

_'I can't let them catch me alone again, I can't let them hurt me again, I can't let them trick me into feeling safe again,' she rambled silently in her mind as her shoulders started to shake. Tsuruuki and his group of friends burst into hysteria when she jerkily bent down, snatched her diary up again, and clamped her arms around it—all without taking her eyes off of them._

_"Maybe you should try writing in a diary yourself and stop picking on girls, assholes!" a redheaded boy snapped angrily at the group of snickering teenagers, glaring at them dangerously. "You might just be able to get some balls and fight someone who would gladly pound your face into the concrete!"_

_"Back off, Carrot Top," Tsuruuki sneered, rolling his eyes as he turned to walk away with his buddies. "We both know you couldn't fight me off even if you **wanted** to. You're a foreigner like **that** thing, remember?"_

_Luna waited until they were at least twelve yards away from her before she turned around and glanced at her rescuer. To her surprise, he was none other than the boy who'd lived next to her since she'd moved into her house: Solaar Hroovitnisson, the son of Norse doctor and a boy whom everyone called 'Sunny' because of his name. Upon close inspection, he was very tall and had a body that suggested he was on the track team, but he also had sparkling amber eyes that somehow seemed to smile at you whenever he laughed. He also had short-cropped red hair that he was growing out. All in all, he was incredibly cute in her eyes—but for some odd reason, he'd chosen to tag along everywhere with her instead of the prettier Japanese girls who were always fawning and giggling over him._

_"Thanks for helping me, Sunny-kun," Luna murmured, staring shyly at the ground. "Those guys are the worst."_

_"No problem, Luna-chan," Solaar laughed, rubbing his neck with an awkward blush. "Those idiots are just pissed because they know they'll never get a date with a pretty girl like you."_

_"As if," Luna giggled quietly, feeling inexplicably warm and bubbly when he mussed up her hair and turned away with a playful wink. She watched with dreamy eyes as Sunny rushed up the stairs that led to the school before shaking her head and snapping out of her buttery-eyed stupor._

_Feeling relieved that she'd been saved from her worst nightmares, Luna followed the group of students up the same set of stairs that Solaar had disappeared on—preparing to face the worst of the school hours._

* * *

_"What a bitch," Yurippidi Tachibana sneered._

_The remark stung Luna Nightingale's back like a wasp, causing her to stiffen as anger sparked in her pale golden eyes. After a moment, her small body relaxed and her countenance returned to its normal emotionless mask. It had been an awful day, and the only condolence to the girl was the fact that it was almost half way over. Upon hearing muffled snickers from behind her back, she tilted her head slightly and used her thigh-length silver hair to form a barrier between herself and her tormenters. After that, she attempted to read her book and ignore the noise._

_'It's the last hour until lunch,' she told herself with forced patience. 'I can deal with this for ten more minutes!'_

_"Oh, look! The orphaned little scarecrow thinks she's all that," Yurippidi continued, glaring at silver-haired girl as she contemptuously pointed out her delicate stature of four-feet. "I mean, look at her! Acting as if she's better than the rest of us simply because she's got silver hair and golden eyes."_

_Luna twitched at the remarks and closed her eyes, trying to block out the horrible memories that were suddenly assaulting her mind. She could practically how see her sisters' faces locked up in terror that day upon hearing the word 'orphan' and she had trouble keeping a straight face as the familiar ache lashed at her. In her mind's eye, Luna could see her enemy standing in the middle of her admirers, flicking her long black hair over her shoulder with practiced ease as she insulted her. This sort of taunting had happened almost every day for half of the school year, ever since Luna had lost her temper for the first time and told the spoiled Japanese girl exactly what she'd thought about her snotty attitude towards other people._

_'Keep calm,' Luna repeated to herself, closing her eyes and snapping her book shut with a weary sigh. 'Don't think about the fact that she's ruled the school with an iron fist and a container of hair gel. After today, you won't have to worry about her harassing other students or pushing others around to get her way.'_

_"You know what? For someone who's in so many smart classes, she clearly doesn't have the brains to pick up friends," the snobby girl went on obnoxiously. "Honestly, I don't think that she's capable of making friends."_

_That's when she snapped._

_"Honestly," Luna finally retorted in a thoughtful tone, her high-pitched soprano lilting into the air as she absently turned the page of her book, "I prefer to earn my friends with trust; I don't buy them with good looks and money."_

_The room fell silent in shock as Luna's soft voice whipped through the empty space like a clap of thunder; it was the second time in a year that she'd voluntarily spoken to anyone other than the teachers. As soon as the words left her mouth, Luna's rage surged: she had the right to talk back to Yurippidi, to resist backing down from torment. It was only the result of the snob's influence on the student body that gave people the impression that no one was able to fight back. Taking a deep breath, Luna Nightingale faced the inevitable conflict that was about to come._

_The Asian girl stiffened at her remark; turning around slowly, she faced Luna as her heavily-lined blue green eyes met the much smaller girl's bare golden ones._

_"Who asked you, midget?" Yurippidi asked with mock sweetness, tossing her long hair like a snooty model._

_"Nobody—but unlike the rest of the students, I don't need to submit to your rules," Luna stated coldly, staring emptily at the pages of her school book. "Unlike everyone else, I don't have to obey your every need whenever you look down your fake little nose at me. I have my own life, and nobody is going to treat me like garbage for simply living it."_

_"Oh, you evil little snipe!" Yurippidi gasped as her hand automatically flew to her nose—the one sore spot in her pride. Flying to her feet, she lifted her chin challengingly and planted her hands on hips. "You're going to stand against me, foreigner? You and what army?"_

_The eyes of every student widened in amazement when the silver-haired girl dropped her book and slowly began standing up. Her shoulders shook with rage as she slowly turned around and glared at Yurippidi, emotionless mask utterly erased for the first time all year as her hatred roared to the surface. Luna stood as tall as her small frame would allow her with a furious leer, long silver hair cascading down around her shoulders as she firmly stood her ground; she was far past the point where she could've left the room. For one thing, she was beyond pissed with her life; for another, If she did then the action would've made her look like she'd given up._

_"I don't **need** my own army to back myself up," Luna retorted icily, gentle tone never rising above a soft murmur despite the look of deadly hatred burning in her fiery golden eyes. "Unlike you—a pathetic little brat who needs to have twenty people behind her back before she can say anything vicious—I know how to defend myself in a fight."_

_Everyone gawped at the scene unfolding in front of them as a tense, strained feeling began to form in the air around them. It felt sharp and taut, like a bowstring that had been pulled to its limits; all of the students were paying attention now._

_"At least I belong here," Yurippidi Tachibana snapped, yet again tossing her hair with a snort. "Go back to the little alley you belong in, bitch. Don't you have any family left there? Like, maybe the sewer rats?"_

_"ENOUGH!" Luna shrieked, storming over to the Japanese girl and jabbing her in the chest with a finger. "No, I don't have any family left! My father was murdered ten years ago when we came here on a family vacation, and my older sisters were tortured to death right in front of me by the same Japanese terrorists who killed him! My body was scarred by them when I tried to escape, my mother became an alcoholic, and now I'm here, Yurippidi! I'm working at a dingy little restaurant just to keep myself in school! You're right: I don't belong here—and I wouldn't turn down a single opportunity to get away from this filthy hellhole you have the audacity to call the best country in the world! It's true that I'm from a different country and much simpler lifestyle, but at least my people don't insult others because of their differences! So the next time you want to insult me, tell it to my fist—because it's gonna be lodged in your teeth if you ever look down on me again."_

_For a moment nobody moved as the threat sank in—but then the teacher came into the room and the students hurriedly sat down in their respective seats._

_"Conroy! Get back to your desk!" the man snapped irritably, eyebrows coming together. Too angry to deal with anymore school that day, the girl turned around and walked to her desk with a seething expression. With a huff, she snatched her backpack and guitar from the floor and stormed over to the door._

_"I'm not feeling well," she stated in a tight voice. "I'm leaving early today, Hakizawa-sensei."_

_"Already?" the man scoffed, blinking in mock surprise when she opened the door. "Being a troublemaker again, Luna-san? Ah, well—be a good little brat and drop by the principal's office before you ditch, okay?"_

_"Whatever. He's been calling me on the intercom all morning, anyway," the girl muttered, shutting the door behind her and heading down the hall. As she walked toward the school entrance with a bowed head, Luna stared at the floor and sighed as her anger slowly dissipated. What she'd said had been the bitter truth: she didn't want to be her own opinion, nobody cared about her and it would have been better if she simply disappeared off the face of the earth. Her mother simply sat in the condo all day long, watching television and drinking alcohol, while she went to school and worked to support both herself **and** her mother's drinking problem. She was just barely getting by as it was, so dealing with the everyday bullies in the school she was working so hard to stay in had been getting to her head a little more than usual._

_"Luna-chan!" a man's voice suddenly sighed from behind her as a large hand descended on her shoulder. The girl jumped as her heart flopped before she relaxed and glanced at her captor._

_"Hello, Headmaster Kiyuukiri," the girl greeted stiffly, nodding at him as she suppressed a scowl._

_"Is that all you have to say to me, young lady?" the elderly man demanded, brown eyes flashing. "I've been calling you all morning on the intercom! I know that you and everyone else heard me, so why didn't you come to my office?"_

_"Because I was working on the test I missed last week," the girl replied simply._

_"Well, I need to discuss some important matters with you about your behavior and attendance," the man sighed, rolling his eyes as he took her small hand. "Come to my office, Luna-chan, and we'll have tea while we—"_

_"No thanks," Luna interrupted icily, gently pulling her hand out of the man's grasp._

_She backed away a few steps and stood there, glaring at him with angry golden eyes—which, in truth, greatly surprised the man. In his own opinion, Luna Conroy was an incredibly shy and quiet girl who kept her emotions hidden behind a well-trained mask. All in all, this was very odd behavior in his eyes._

_"What do you mean?" he asked, blinking a few times in confusion._

_"I said 'no,'" the girl repeated, shaking her head as she backed away a few more steps. "I'm tired of everybody at this school always insulting me for being a foreigner. I'm tired of them calling me names for having this freakish silver hair, and having these ugly golden eyes, and being so small, and having no responsible parents! I'm sick of it! I'm not coming back to school after today, so there's no point in going to your office. Thank you, Headmaster, but I'll set myself up in the education system once I'm back in Ireland. I'm done with it here."_

_"What?" the headmaster choked out as the blood drained from his face, utterly shocked by her decision. "Luna Conroy, don't do something so drastic! You're obviously angry and not thinking clearly, so why don't you come to my office and we'll—"_

_"No!" the small girl hissed, bristling as her shoulders tensed. "I'm not acting rash in the heat of the moment, Chairman! I've been thinking about this for almost a year now, and I already have plans for what I'm going to do once I leave school! Just stay out of my life and stop pretending that you care about me when you don't!"_

_"Luna, hang on! I—wait!" the man cried, stretching out his hand when the girl whirled around and darted down the hall. His expression fell drastically when she darted out the doors and he sighed, "She earned a Scholarship to the best university in Japan because of how hard she's been trying, and I wasn't even able to tell her about it."_

* * *

_As she was walking down the walkway to the school gates, Luna heard a couple of male voices chatting behind the gymnasium a few feet away from her. Rolling her eyes with a scowl, she ignored them and pressed on until one of them mentioned her name—which made her freeze and listen to what they were saying._

_"No way, man!" the first voice snickered. "You mean she just gave you her wallet? That's fresh!"_

_"You bet it is! She insulted me, so I told her I was that freaky albino's cousin!" the second voice laughed, making Luna stiffen with rage. Turning and slowly walking over to the edge of the gym wall, she peered around the corner to see what they were talking about: one of the boys was holding up a brown wallet. "She just dropped it and ran away! Everyone knows that Yui Kagesaki is terrified of the little freak."_

_"What are you gonna do if Conroy finds out about what you said?" the first boy asked as she slowly detached herself from the corner and made her way toward them with an expression of icy calm. "Everyone in my class is scared of her because she knows how to fight. She was taught by Yagari-sensei himself, you know! She'll kill you, man!"_

_"Oh, spare me!" the teenager holding the wallet sneered. "The midget never says anything during the classes I have with her, and anyway—she'll probably be thanking me for making her look so scary. Maybe people will leave her alone more often now! Ha ha!"_

_"Ah—ah—ahhhh!" the first boy choked, looking past his face and staring at Luna__—_who was standing silhouetted in the shadows directly behind him.

_"Dude, what are you freaking out fo—!" the second boy began to ask as he turned around, but then he froze. Both teenagers instantly leapt to their feet and backed away from the small girl, who merely stood there silently as she fumed._

_"I'm so sorry! I didn't mean it! Here, take it—I don't want it," the second boy wailed, thrusting the wallet out in her direction. Luna looked down at it and her face twisted in anger before she glanced up at the first boy and hit him in the solar plexus; flawlessly, she swiped the other boy's legs out from under his body with her foot and both teenagers dropped to the ground._

_"You think I want your stupid money? Guess again, you bastards! Unlike you, I'm not a bully!" she shouted loudly, bending over the two of them with her arms crossed. At that moment, one of her most spiteful teachers walked around the corner and stopped—staring at the three of them with a smirk._

_"Conroy, step away from them," the man stated coldly, walking toward her when she stood up straight._

_"It's Professor Yuichi Takamoto!" the first boy gasped, still struggling to breathe._

_"Don't worry boys, you're safe from her now. Tell me what happened here?" the man muttered, staring at Luna with condescending eyes as she turned away and crossed her arms with an angry huff. The two boys stiffened, then glanced at each other fearfully._

_"N-nothing," the first one stammered, looking at the ground. "We're f-fine."_

_"I see… Conroy was using her martial arts training to steal your wallet. Typical scum behavior, abusing such knowledge like that," Takamoto intoned, looking at the wallet on the ground with a sinister smirk. Luna stiffened and looked at him over her shoulder with an incredulous expression on her face._

_"Excuse me for pointing this out, Takamoto-sensei, but assuming makes an ass out of you and me," she scoffed, arching an eyebrow. "I've never stolen anything in my entire life, and I'm not about to start."_

_"Dirty little weeds like you should have been plucked along time ago. You don't belong here, Conroy," the man retorted, ignoring her statement._

_"You shouldn't talk," she said quietly, bristling as her golden eyes darkened with rage. "It ruins your intelligent appearance and makes you sound really, really stupid. Check the identification card inside of the wallet itself, Sensei, and reassess your decision on who really doesn't belong here."_

_With that, Luna threw a glare at the two thieves and slinked away from the gymnasium. _

_Soon she was off school grounds altogether._

* * *

_"It figures that the few times I actually speak my mind that I'm the one who always gets blamed for everything that goes wrong! I hate that school! I hate this town! I want to go back home to Ireland!" Luna snapped angrily, hefting her guitar case further onto her shoulder as she walked through her front yard. After sliding open the Japanese-style door and taking off her dress shoes, Luna turned around and sighed sarcastically, "Oh, great! It's the mother of the year!"_

_"Get me coffee," the plump woman stated emotionlessly, not moving from the floor as she smoked her cigarette._

_"I can't believe she's still in bed…" Luna muttered to herself as she stalked over to the corner, pulled out her personal stool, and stretched her arms up to open the cupboard for the coffee mix and a cup._

_"Why aren't you in school," Molly Conroy asked, tone sounding slightly accusatory as her daughter filled the cup full of hot water and put some of the ground coffee mix inside it._

_"I left because they made me angry," Luna replied in a deadpan as she stiffly stirred her mother's drink._

_"Well, if you're not going to go then you might as well quit and get yourself a job," the woman said coldly._

_Luna looked up and stared out the window, golden eyes sparkling as they finally began to fill with the angry tears she'd been suppressing all morning. She did have a job, but her mother didn't know that. She had been working extremely hard to support the two of them alone, but her mother believed that the money came from the Irish Government to repay them for what had happened to their family. In reality, Luna was simply buying envelopes and stamps every month, putting fake signatures on them, and tucking a hundred dollars into the opening before she stuffed the envelopes into the mailbox._

_"Are you going to look down on me, too, Mom?" Luna asked hoarsely, staring at the sky through the window as the tears spilled over and streamed down her cheeks. "You sit there in your pajamas watching television and don't do a single constructive thing all day long; the most you do is get drunk, smoke, and watch those stupid soap operas! Are you really going to lecture me?"_

_"Dear, if you hate preaching so much then maybe you should live by yourself," the woman shot back nonchalantly, flicking the remote and turning the television. "But you can't do that, now, can you?"_

_That was the last thing she was going to deal with: she'd had enough of everything and staying in Japan was out of the question. She'd swim back to Ireland if she had to, but she wasn't going to take any more shit after today. Decision already made, Luna wordlessly took the cup of coffee, whirled around, and threw it at the television with fury-induced strength; the screen shattered in a hissing explosion of glass and caffeinated drink, startling her mother profoundly. After that, Luna padded silently to the front door and calmly put on her shoes, utterly ignoring Molly as she stared through her long red hair with wide golden eyes._

_"Luna, where are you going?" the woman tried to ask, but cut herself off and froze when Luna turned around with a furious glare. The look wasn't what had shocked her into silence, however; the fact that she was **crying** was. The last time Molly had seen her youngest daughter cry had been on the day that her sisters daughters were murdered… and that had been nearly ten years ago. _

_Luna stared into Molly's huge eyes for the longest moment, not making even the slightest sound as she sent a silent message; but then she whirled around without warning, threw __open_ the door, and darted outside—all without saying a single word.

* * *

**_Bounce… Bounce… Bounce…_**

_The sound entered Luna's frazzled awareness as she sat on the sidewalk with her head buried in her knees, resting for a moment in the busier part of Kyoto, Japan. Lifting her head as a soccer ball came to rest at her feet, the girl wiped her eyes picked it up with a curious expression. When she looked up, however, she saw a grinning little boy wearing overalls running toward her. When he came to a stop in front of her, he clasped his hands behind his back and smiled hopefully._

_"May I have my ball back please?" he asked, stretching out his hands pleadingly. With a sigh, Luna shook her head free of her problems and clutched the ball in both hands, preparing to give him a lecture._

_"Listen, kid, it's dangerous here! There are cars going past that will splatter you into the pavement!" she told him snappishly. However, the small girl realized that she'd been a little too harsh the moment he drew back—which made her sigh and decide to lighten the mood with a little random silliness. Bringing the ball up to her face and hiding it, she crossed her golden eyes and made a really weird face before lowering it again and sticking her tongue out at him comically. When the boy started giggling, she repeated the gesture a few more times until they both started cracking up. After she quieted her own laughter, Luna's steely golden eyes softened slightly when she saw that the child was still laughing._

_'Well, even if everyone else hates me… at least I can make little kids happy,' she thought with a sigh, shaking her head sadly. Placing the soccer ball into the little boy's hands, Luna gently tapped his nose with her finger_

_"I've got to get going now, kiddo, but listen to what I said about the cars. It's not safe playing around here, okay?" she said gently, mussing up his dark brown hair and winking before she stood__. S_moothing out her school skirt and straightening her blazer, Luna began walking again—leaving the little boy on the sidewalk as she turned to cross the street. When the light turned, a crowd of people swirled around her like a river of life. Once she was on the opposite sidewalk, however, Luna turned to look back at the child in an attempt to check on him before she began walking again. She sighed in dismay when she saw that he was kicking his ball on the sidewalk again, but continued to watch as the people around her went on with their lives, going about their business without a care in the world. 

_"Can't say I didn't warn him. It's not my problem if he gets crushed," Luna __sighed, shaking her head in dismay. However,_ the girl was just turning to leave when the sound of a loud kick echoed into the sudden silence that filled the air, making her stiffen and freeze. She slowly turned around again and watched as the child's soccer ball went sailing into the road, golden eyes following the toy as it bounced three times before sitting still. She stared at the opening between the two cars it had come from, but terror surged into her throat when a familiar shock of brown hair happily bobbed into view.

_"Whoa! Kid, stop! Don't go into the road!" she called frantically, clutching her head with both hands and watching as the little boy continued toward his ball. A faded screech suddenly entered Luna's awareness and she glanced to the left, but her heart did a sickening little flutter when she saw a red sports car careening around the corner. The man and woman inside the car weren't paying attention, and she instantly knew that they wouldn't see the child until it was too late. Face going white with horror, Luna shoved aside a few passerby and ran into the people she pushed stared as she crashed past them. _

_"What on earth is she doing?" one woman gasped, pointing at Luna's sprinting form._

_"HEY!" Luna cried as the sound of screeching tires split the air. "__Watch out, Kid!_"

_The sound of her dress shoes left the pavement as she dove like a linebacker and shoved the child out of the way. Sudden silence was all that she heard as the screech of the tires roared in her ears, and she slowly turned her head with a blank expression as time slowed to a near halt. All she could see was a blinding red color as the screeching sound intensified… but then a crushing pain smashed into her left side and her shrill, bloodcurdling shriek echoed throughout the streets for what seemed like an eternity. Inexplicably, the world around her suddenly exploded from red into white as her scream bounced off the streets and buildings._

_ However, when it's haunting echo finally died away in the distance, only a shattered silence prevailed._

* * *

Everyone who had been going about their business stopped with a jolt when the sound of screeching tires and a girl's high-pitched scream of agony split the air. Time alone seemed to freeze as the sound of shattering glass and denting metal tore itself into listening ears, rending the calmness of small town life in two. As the body of the small high school girl rolled to a stop on the street behind the damaged car that had struck her, several moments of dead silence reigned free: not a single other car moved, for people had stopped driving and had opened their doors halfway with looks of shock and horror on their faces; not a single person on the sidewalk moved, for they had been frozen in place with mortification by what they had just seen; not even the wind stirred...

It was almost as though time itself had been shocked into stillness by the horror of what had just happened.

In that trapped moment of time, there was nothing but total silence.

Then panic erupted.

There were hysterical shouts as people ran into the street and surrounded the silver-haired girl's battered and bleeding form, unintelligible words of panic breaking into the air as they knelt around her broken body. A middle-school girl who had had been recording her little sister's first shopping spree had caught the entire thing on camera, but she'd dropped the camcorder in horror once she realized what had happened and had her mother call the police. Through it all, the small angel lay on the ground where she had fallen as blood trickled from the corner of her soft lips. The hand of Fate had suddenly turned for the worse.

Because, you see… oddly enough… Luna Nightingale Conroy was dead.


	3. Chapter One: Surprised to be Dead?

Chapter One: Surprised to be Dead?

Luna groaned as her eyes fluttered weakly, limbs twitching slightly as an inexplicable pain stabbed into her head. With a small sound of discontentment, she opened her eyes a little bit and stared at the window of the building she was facing. Feeling groggy, she stared at the upper story in confusion until her eyes popped open wide and she looked up: instead of staring at the sky, she was staring at the ground—and it was nearly fifty feet below her hovering form. Letting out a startled squeak when her school skirt suddenly reversed like an umbrella and revealed her pink underwear, the small girl flailed her arms in terror as vertigo clutched her stomach. She flapped like a bird until she was hovering upright before she stared down at the street, where a group of people stood clustered around something she couldn't see.

After practicing for several moments, she got the hang of moving around in the air and let herself float down awkwardly. As she descended, the silver-haired girl tried to get a better look at what everyone was so interested in—but the further down she went, the stronger her dread and sense of impending doom became. Still, she ignored it and continued going down. When the crowd shifted slightly and a body was revealed, she stared stupidly until a slow icy feeling spread throughout her chest. Her golden eyes widened as a scream built up inside her throat, but she clamped her hand over her mouth when she saw what was happening.

The body lying on the ground was _her_!

"Okay, this is scary…" she whispered as she landed on the ground, golden eyes huge as she stared at her limp and bloody form. She slowly uncovered her mouth and knelt down to look at herself, shock apparent in her expression. Just as she was stretching out her hand to touch her own shoulder, the sound of an ambulance broke through the commotion around her. She looked up as two Japanese Paramedics burst out of the vehicle and made their way toward her body.

"All right people! Clear a path!" one of the men shouted.

"Here's one of them!" the other called, sprinting over to where her battered form was lying.

Luna fell backwards when the man nearly crashed into her but stared worriedly when he pulled out a pocket light and shone it into her eyes. She twitched as a momentary blindness overtook her but shook it off a second later.

"Besides a few scratches, the boy looks to be perfectly fine," the other medic said in relief, patting the kid she'd saved on the head; the child burst into tears and started wailing after a moment of rubbing his arms.

"Well, at least one of the victims is okay," the EMT checking her eyes muttered grimly, getting up and turning away.

"Hey, wait! What's that supposed to mean?" Luna squeaked, raising a hand as fear shot through her chest; the two men simply ignored her and went on with their business.

"I hate cleanup duty," the first paramedic muttered as he pulled out a stretcher. "Why do we always get the worst cases?"

"Hey!" Luna shouted, stomping her foot and waving her arms at the two of them. "I can hear you talking, you know!"

"Put a blanket over the girl and take the little boy," the second man instructed. She watched as they lifted her body onto the stretcher and shoved it into the back of the ambulance with little to no care whatsoever.

"Whoa, watch what you're doing! Wearing those uniforms doesn't mean you can do whatever you want with me! Don't just write me off like this! Hey, will you _listen_ to me?" Luna shrieked, running at the man with her hands stretched out in an attempt to push him away from her body. To her shock, she encountered no resistance whatsoever with his back and merely sank through him _and _the floor of the ambulance before landing painfully on the ground. Apparently, scraping her hands on concrete was still an option...

The engine started up above her head a she lay face with her arms splayed out awkwardly, but she looked up the moment it drove away with the siren on. As she slowly climbed to her feet, Luna shivered and hugged herself when she noticed that she was hovering nearly a foot in the air.

"Okay… that was _not_ normal," she whispered, letting herself drift high above the scene where the accident had happened. Police officers were standing around talking to the people she'd been surrounded by, but what held her attention was the red car with the tire-marks stretching behind it.

"Is this really happening? I'm dead? No warning at all, and that's it?" she wondered aloud, folding her legs underneath her hovering form and plopping her hands in her lap. "Huh, that's odd. If that was really me down there, then who am I up here? Wait a second... if I'm really dead, then could it mean… I've turned into a ghost?"

"Bingo! Bingo! You win the prize!" a cheerful male voice exclaimed, startling her profoundly. Luna instantly turned to look at the speaker from over her shoulder, but she nearly fell out of the air when she saw a boy with glowing pink eyes and natural-looking _blue hair—_clad in an old-fashioned violet _Kimono—_sitting on a broomstick behind her. "Heh, I didn't expect you to figure it out so quickly!"

"What the…" Luna stammered weakly, staring at the strange-looking guy with a shocked expression. "Who the heck are you? And why are you sitting on a floating broomstick? Are you a witch-guy?"

"When people die unexpectedly like you just did, often they can't accept it and become ghosts, you see?" the young man replied with a bright grin.

"You didn't answer my question, pinkeye," Luna pointed out with an amused snort, folding her arms and cocking an expectant eyebrow.

"Bayton's my name, and I'm the pilot of the River Styx!" the abnormal-looking young man laughed as he playfully lifted his sleeve-covered arms and flew up to Luna's face_—_making the silver-haired girl lean back with a wide-eyed look of discomfort. "I believe in your culture they also call me the Grim Reaper! Ring a bell?"

"A cute guy like you?" Luna asked in disbelief, blinking a few times as she fought back an absurd laugh. "Oh, spare me the details, Grimmy! You're too bubbly for the job!"

"I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment or an insult!" the blue-haired boy chuckled.

"Seriously, though, if you were the real messenger of death then I'm pretty sure you'd be taking this more seriously," Luna stated neutrally, folding her arms again and looking away with an expressionless face. After a moment her eyebrows came together in confusion and she glared at him. "And how grim can you be when you say something cute like 'Bingo'? You're supposed to wear a big black robe and look like a skeleton, not a Powerpuff _Boy_!"

"Ha ha, good one! Now I can see what kind of person you are! It's in my guidebook!" Bayton laughed, pulling a small pamphlet out of his kimono and flipping it open to a specific page. "Rather than be scared or surprised, you hide your emotions behind a mask and tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about. Ah, here it is! 'Aurora Nightingale Conroy! Nickname: Luna. Age: fifteen years old. History: based on observations, her personality is impulsive and reckless, she is ill-mannered, has a violent temper, no respect for authority, and she often backs down before finishing an assignment. She is failing as a high school student and is on the brink of being fired from her job.' Eheh… I guess things weren't looking up for you, now, were they Squirt?"

"That's none of your business!" Luna cried, lunging for the pamphlet and missing entirely; Bayton laughed when she fell with a squeak and hovered back up with an expression of calm indifference on her fragile face.

"Okay, Death Boy," Luna sighed, turning away from him and staring at the clouds hovering around them with an interested expression. "Can you tell me what happened to the little kid I saved? Is he okay? Is he hurt?"

"You want to go visit him?" Bayton asked, flipping through his pamphlet with a carefree and easygoing smile. Luna turned and glanced at him, mask dissolving into a look of solemn curiosity as she nodded once. With a deafening rush of air, darkness momentarily engulfed Luna's body as her waist-length silver hair and black school skirt tossed around wildly; but then the world came into focus once more and she found herself floating in front of a hospital window. Inside was the little boy, and next to him was a brown-haired woman who Luna guessed to be his mother.

"Well, we got the test results in," the doctor siting across from them stated with a smile. "He's got a few scrapes, but no signs of broken bones or brain damage whatsoever."

"Oh, thank goodness…" the young woman sobbed, pulling her son into her arms and burying her face in his hair.

"He's really okay," she sighed, shaking her head and closing her golden eyes. After a moment, she opened her eyes and watched the two of them with a small smile as powerful relief warmed her body from the inside out. She had no more qualms now that she knew the kid was going to be okay, and she'd already accepted the fact that she wasn't going to be alive any longer. She was ready to pass on and didn't want to stick around. Tucking a stray wisp of natural silver behind her ear, Luna turned around and stared at the Messenger of Death with a brave expression.

"Okay, Bayton: I've got no regrets, so you can take me to hell or wherever it is I'm going now," she stated.

"Tch-heeh!" Bayton squawked before he covered his mouth and muffled his laughter.

"What's so funny about that?" Luna demanded, folding her arms and glaring at the freaky boy.

"Maybe you should have let me talk earlier," Bayton replied cheerfully. "I'm not here to take you away from this world; actually, I'm here to see if you'll accept an ordeal that could give you your life back."

"An… ordeal?" Luna asked, cocking her head to the side in confusion. "Really?"

"Uh-huh!" Bayton replied with a nod. "It's funny to me, Luna—but none of us were really expecting for you to die today, and I'm afraid that you've thrown us all for a loop! Run someone with your credentials through that scenario a million times and they never would have saved a child like that! No one saw it coming, and frankly, we haven't prepared a place for you yet."

"Give me a break!" Luna exclaimed, unfolding her arms as shock crossed her features. "Are you telling me you knew that little boy was going to die? And you all-powerful beings never even once thought I could care enough to save him?"

"Well, I wasn't going to tell you this because I knew it would upset you, but…" Bayton sighed, flipping through the pages of his pamphlet, "without the confusion caused by you running into the street, that boy would have actually missed the car and escaped with one less scrape on his right shoulder."

"What?" Luna whispered as a jolt went through her; golden eyes wide, she squeaked frantically, "That's not true! It _can't_ be true! He was headed right for him!"

"Yes, well… the driver would have veered to the left at the last second," Bayton pointed out, then closed his eyes with a big grin and happily exclaimed, "In other words, your death was a complete and utter waste!"

"W-wha—?" Luna stuttered, mouth dropping open in shock.

"Surprised? Well, in your case I wouldn't blame you! But don't worry, silly! I said you could have a second chance, remember? Just go through the easy ordeal and you'll be back to life in no time," Bayton laughed, watching as Luna's jaw snapped shut. "You should feel special! Cases like these only happen once every hundred years!"

"You're just like everyone else: you have absolutely no idea what's actually going on," Luna said cryptically, face blanking out as she turned around and flew toward the ground with a sigh. Bayton cocked an eyebrow before he put the pamphlet away and followed the girl on his broomstick.

"What's that supposed to mean? I know exactly what's going on! And you've got another chance at living again, too! Don't you think that's an awesome deal—huh?" Bayton stopped talking when Luna halted and simply floated above the world with her limbs hanging limply. Her long silver hair glistened like satin starlight as it twisted in the wind around her.

"It might be a good deal, but no thanks," the girl replied softly, not turning around.

"Huh?" Bayton asked again, expression becoming confused.

"I kind of like being a ghost," Luna continued quietly, stretching out her hand and watching as a robin flew past it. Finally turning around, Luna stared at Bayton with a delighted grin. "Plus, you said yourself that my life was kind of pathetic, right?"

"I don't recall…" the blue-haired boy stated with a shrug, visibly becoming worried as he mentally smacked himself for being so insensitive. In truth, all he knew about the girl were the things written in the guidebook—and it was all based on observations that had only taken place once every two years. He knew virtually nothing about the teenager in front of him except for what was written. He could have just made a serious mistake…

"Well, the truth is this: everyone will be much happier now that I'm erased from the world. The teachers will be able to rest their big mouths, the students won't be offended with my foreign presence any longer, and best of all is the fact that my Mom will be able to party whenever she wants without me always griping at her," Luna laughed excitedly.

"I'm sorry you feel that way at such an early age…" Bayton stated solemnly, observing the girl's expression as she stretched and turned away to look at the setting sun. The smile resting on her lips never once touched her eyes, alerting him to the fact that it was being forced. In Bayton's own opinion, those golden pools of hers seemed to swirl with barely concealed sorrow as she laughed at her so-called 'pathetic' life.

"Yeah, well you've got to agree that there's no point in me doing some ordeal to get back a life that's already going nowhere," Luna sighed, shaking her head as her laughter finally disappeared altogether. Bayton caught her attention by floating up and away from where she was hovering, making her glance up curiously.

"I don't think there's any point in making big decisions in a hurry," the broom-riding boy stated cheerfully. "Why don't you spend some time at your wake and think it over. I'll come back when you decide."

"Did you hear what I said at all, Pinkeye?" Luna squeaked, waving her skinny arms at Bayton's retreating form. "I _did_ deciiiiiide!"


	4. Chapter Two: Cry Me A River

Chapter Two: Cry Me A River...

After nearly four hours of pouting and sulking, Luna finally decided to fly over to her house and see what was going on. Seeing how she was dead and all, the small girl wanted to watch as the people who'd disliked her so much celebrated the fact that she was gone. Luna _planned_ to use their glee as proof to Bayton that there was no point in coming back, but what met her eyes when she arrived above the house wasn't a party… it wasn't what she had expected at _all,_ frankly. What she saw was an incredible mass of adults she had met over the years, and they were all wearing black as they hovered around and inside her house. As she stared around the group, she saw that most of the teenagers were laughing and joking in the backyard—which made her anger twinge.

Oddly enough, though, Yurippidi wasn't even in the crowd.

Luna descended to the ground and walked into the house, unseen among the people milling around. Walking into the living room, she saw her mother sitting against the wall with a vacant-eyed expression as people took turns kneeling in front of her. As was the traditional Japanese custom, all of them placed some sort of token to ease the pain of her mother's loss.

"Tch… yeah right," Luna muttered, turning away in disgust and walking over to the coffin in the dining room. "She's probably thinking about when she can hit the nearest bar to celebrate."

White flowers had been placed around a black and white picture of her, one that had been taken just as she was walking out of school. She had turned around to see who was calling her name when the person had taken her picture. She'd been incredibly angry with the trick at first, but when she'd seen how the image had turned out she'd felt amazed: the look on her face as she'd turned around had been incredible—not really smiling or scowling, just look of intense curiosity mixed with an expression of childish innocence, one that had was rarely seen on her face for extended periods of time. The pose of her just-twisting body and the angle of her long hair swirling around her torso had been perfect.

All in all, she had looked… well, _beautiful_.

Feeling slightly ill, Luna turned away and soared outside, hovering and watching her classmates laugh in the backyard.

"Just like I thought, they're all still laughing," Luna muttered, clenching her fists angrily. "They probably just came here for the free food and extra credit!"

"Sunny-kun, please!" a woman suddenly exclaimed from the doorway, catching her attention. Solaar Hroovitnisson was struggling to make his way outside, but an elderly women was holding him back. "Don't leave her funeral just yet, please! She was your best friend, Sunny, so you should at least say something nice to her mother before you go back home!"

Luna's eyes widened and she fell to the ground, landing hard on her backside without feeling it. She watched as Solaar stopped struggling and just stood there for a long moment, head hanging limply as he stared at the ground. Then, he slowly brought his arms up to his head and screamed as loud as he could. Luna flinched as the sound ripped through the somber air, gawping as her friend and neighbor collapsed to all fours, crying and sobbing her name as he continuously punched the dirt. The woman placed her arms around his shoulders, also starting to cry as she held him. Elyra Marigold closed her amber eyes as she held her grandson, rocking him back and forth as people looked on sadly. Luna trembled slightly as Sunny continued to cry in his grandmother's arms, screaming her name until his throat sounded raw and hoarse.

"No! It's not right!" a vaguely familiar voice suddenly cried, breaking though Sunny's screaming sobs and making Luna's eyes go blank; she turned around and stared in disbelief when another—much more familiar—voice broke the stillness.

"Let me go! Let me go! ARGH!" Yurippidi Tachibana shrieked hysterically, literally dragging two other teenagers behind her as she struggled toward the house. "Get off of me! GET OFF!"

"What the hell?" Luna scoffed, staring at the girl in shock as she struggled into the yard and up to the door—staring the same way that so many others were doing. "Yurippidi? No way!"

"Damn you, Luna Conroy!" the Asian girl shrieked, struggling to get inside the house. "You think you can just back down on me like this? You really _are_ a cold-blooded bitch! How could you _do_ this to me? I was going to apologize to you today! I was going to say I was sorry for everything and ask if you could be my first real friend, but you got yourself killed! Stupid! You stupid, idiotic _Bitch_! Why? Why did you do that?"

"Yuri-san, this place is for _mourning_," the girl holding her left arm whined as she was dragged past Luna's vacant-eyed mother, looking around at all of the staring people with a tight expression. "Stop it, please! This isn't right!"

"I'm not—gonna leave—until I SEE her!" Yurippidi cried, gritting her teeth as she struggled toward the coffin. "I won't! Not until I can tell her I'm sorry! Not until she forgives me for what I did today! I didn't really know anything about her the entire time I was insulting her! I was so awful, and I never knew about her family when I called her all those names and made all of those street rat jokes! Luna Conroy, I know you're here, so stop messing around! Get your ass out here and tell me you forgive me! Where are you?"

"Yuri, _quit_ it! She can't do that!" the skinny boy holding her right arm groaned, struggling to get her out of the house. "She's gone, okay! She can't forgive you now! You lost your chance, don't you get it? She's dead! She's gone forever!"

"NO!" Yuri shrieked, bursting into tears as she collapsed to her knees in front of the coffin. "How could you do this to me, Luna? I was sorry, you little bitch! I felt sorry for someone other than myself for the _first_ time in my life! And the one time I actually _wanted_ to apologize for something I did, I can't even get the chance because you got yourself killed! You made me a bad person forever, idiot! WHY? Why couldn't you have waited? You were supposed to be here for me! This isn't how it was supposed to happen!"

"That's enough, now come on! Let's go!" the boy holding her arm finally snapped in anger, violently dragging her away with the other girl's help.

"NOOO!" Yuri wailed, struggling as she was pulled out of the house. "No! No! NO! Let me go! Let me _go!_ Luna! LUNAAAHAHAA! NO! LUNA!"

"Sorry for all… _that,_ folks," the girl said with a strained smile as she dragged her screaming and crying friend away.

Luna watched them go with a hollow feeling in her chest, clutching at her blazer with both hands.

"Who would have… guessed…" she whispered hoarsely as she gazed after them.

"Did you see those scumbags?" a man's voice sneered behind her, making her go rigid. Luna whirled around and saw her two professors, Takamoto and Hakizawa, standing next to each other with identical expressions of disdain.

"They're just some losers that Conroy hung out with," Takamoto sneered nonchalantly, waving his hand in the air. "It's too bad that sports car wasn't big enough for them, too!"

"Now, now, don't say that. We should be glad," Hakizawa said in a mocking voice. "After a life of being completely worthless in her studies, the Conroy brat actually did something to give our school a good reputation."

"Well, between you and me, Mr. Hakizawa, I'd say that Conroy probably saved that little kid on accident. Probably while she was trying to knock him down and steal all his lunch money," Takamoto snickered.

"Ha! I wouldn't be surprised by that one little bit, Mr. Takamoto," Hakizawa laughed.

Luna clenched her fists and squeezed her eyes shut in a rage before her hand twitched out to the man's face. Just as she was wishing she could punch the two of them in the face, a set of large weathered fists clamped down on both of their shoulders from behind. Luna blinked in surprise as the two men were jerked around and pulled into the face of Headmaster Kiyuukiri.

"What do you think is more disgraceful?" the elderly—yet very big and muscular—man demanded, glaring at his professors. "That girl screaming and crying out of sheer misery, or your insulting words to someone who lost her life while she was saving a child from being crushed to death?"

"Headmaster…" Luna whispered in awe, watching as the man shoved them back and made his way into the house. Feeling curious despite herself, she followed him inside and watched as he knelt before her mother. Then he did something that none of the visitors had done until that point: he slid over to the mat in front of the coffin and stared at her picture with his head bowed.

Unknown to him, the very girl that he was mourning was standing behind him, watching every movement he made.

"At first I was so surprised, Luna… to hear that you saved a child at the cost of your own life," he stated evenly, staring at the picture of the girl before him. "You've always acted so unfeelingly and emotionlessly that sometimes even _I _wondered if you cared about others at all, but… Oh, God damn it, Luna! I don't understand why I feel like speaking ill of you right now! Why didn't you stay? You could have made something great out of yourself if you had only talked to me today! How could God take such a promising girl like you away from us…?"

Luna watched as his hand tightened into a fist and he began to weep, eyes becoming round and utterly empty of emotion as a grown man—one who had never broken down before, even at his own wife's funeral—cried for _her_. She stood there vacantly, not knowing how to react or what to do about any of this— but then another voice broke the stillness of the air for the first time that night.

"Lu… na…?" someone whispered hoarsely, and the mentioned girl slowly turned her head and stared emptily at her the speaker.

It was her mother.

The woman's golden eyes were still wide and blank, but now they were filling with tears as she stared at the wall. Molly's face slowly began to scrunch up as she began to cry, still staring vacantly at the wall until—without warning—she burst into hysterical tears. Slowly—ever so slowly—the woman buried her head in her lap and curled into a ball against the wall, wrapping her arms around her legs as she sobbed brokenly. Luna's throat locked up as she watched her mother cry, feeling horrible for causing the pain she was enduring.

"This way…" another woman's voice said quietly.

"Yes, Mommy," a familiar childish voice replied; Luna slowly turned around and watched as the little boy she'd saved walked into her house and slowly walked over to the coffin. The two of them sat down, and the child mimicked his mother's movements with a smile. After a moment, the young woman turned to her son.

"Now you should say something to honor her," she said softly, touching his shoulder before getting up. With an excited expression, the toddler turned back to Luna's picture and clasped his hands cheerfully.

"Thanks for saving me! And making funny faces!" he said brightly while his mother knelt before Luna's—who had stopped wailing and now sat shaking with silent tears as she remained curled up.

The small girl finally turned away as tears filled her own eyes and she flew up through the ceiling—long silver hair billowing around her form in a shimmering cloud as she fled. She soared into the air above her house and stared down at the place she'd called her home for the last ten years, watching as the child and his mother left through the front door.

"Mommy? Do you think it would be okay if I play with that pretty girl tomorrow? If I'm good?" the little boy suddenly asked, tugging at the woman's hand. His mother stopped instantly when she realized what he'd asked and slowly sank down in front of him, placing her hand on his cheek.

"No, son," she said quietly, voice cracking slightly as she muffled a sob. The child cocked his head in confusion for a second before his eyes flooded with innocent realization and he grinned excitedly.

"Oh, I know some people sounded mad at her, but she's really nice! She made me laugh with her funny faces!" he laughed.

_The way Sunny's face had contorted in agony as he screamed her name flashed into Luna's mind._

"And she got me my ball back!" he said cheerfully.

_The way Yuri had struggled to her house just so she could apologize seared across Luna's golden eyes._

"I don't know why those people were crying like that," the child added

_The way Headmaster Kiyuukiri's fist tightened as tears fell onto his lap burned behind Luna's retinas._

"Was it because they wanted to play with her, too?" he asked hopefully.

_The way her mother had blankly begun to cry punctured a hole in Luna's heart, and the pain finally bled out._

The woman let out a soft sound and pulled her son into her arms as a single tear slid down her cheek. Without feeling anything, Luna turned around and flew towards the moon until she stopped and sat with her legs folded. Then she gazed at it as tears streamed down her own face, wondering how she could have hurt so many people by simply… not living anymore.

* * *

As Luna sat staring at the moon, Bayton seemingly materialized out of thin air behind her. He stared at the young girl as the breeze played with her moon-washed hair, waiting expectantly for her to notice him. After a few minutes of doing nothing, he sighed and decided to take matters into his own hands.

"Well?" he asked in a singsong voice, grinning playfully at the back of her head. "Have you decided?"

"Hey, Bayton?" the girl suddenly asked softly, ignoring his question for the moment.

"Yes, dear?" he asked expectantly, impatiently rolling his shoulders.

"Have you ever… not known about something that seemed obvious to everyone else?" Luna asked, lowering her gaze to look at the lights of the city below her. Bayton looked away with his ever-present smile as he pondered the question.

"That happens to us all, I think," he replied after a moment, then asked, "So, are you ready now?"

"Yeah…" Luna said sadly, once again lifting her golden gaze to the source of her namesake. "I am."

"Great! Good to hear! Now, let's not waste any time and get this thing started!" the blue-haired boy laughed, grabbing the collar of Luna's beige blazer and dragging her through the air at warp speed.

"EEK! WAAH, SLOW DOWN! I MAY BE DEAD AND ALL, BUT I STILL CAN'T STAND HEEEIGHTS! NOOOOOO!" Luna shrieked as she was pulled towards the heavens. "WHERE ARE YOU TAKING MEEE?"

"To the Spirit World!" Bayton laughed, looking at her as though it were obvious while he poked his tongue out at her.

"The w-what?" Luna squeaked, kicking her legs hysterically; her mind may have known she'd died, but that didn't keep her stomach from telling her she was dangling from a crazy boy's broomstick and hovering nearly three hundred feet above the ground

"The Spirit World," Bayton repeated with a snort and an eye-roll. "We're going to see someone who will explain the ordeal to you and give you what you need."

"What do I need?" Luna cried, clinging to his broom like a kitten trapped in a tree.

"You'll see," the freaky boy giggled, the girlish sound sending shivers up her spine.

"Never do that again," Luna croaked weakly before she closed her eyes and turned green. "I think I'll hurl if I hear it."


End file.
